GETTING INTO THE GROUND 31 



feet deep, and in these holes driving down another 

 two feet a bar that made room in each for a half- 

 stick of forty per cent dynamite, which when 

 exploded shook apart the shale without throwing 

 any of it out. There was thus provided room for 

 water and root action, and both are needed. 



What I have written as to using manure freely 

 must be read as applying to my problem, which is 

 by no means what some other garden-growers may 

 have to face. I am writing of how fertihty has 

 been applied to and unlocked from this rough 

 and long-neglected shale soil. I have seen happy 

 gardeners working on soil — deep, black, rich — that 

 made me envious, imtil I realized how much more 

 fun I was having. 



That first spring the smell of the trash fire was 

 constantly about Breeze Hill. I sorrow to think 

 of the potential fertility I foolishly burned, in 

 raked-up leaves and grass, in gathered weeds and 

 vegetable refuse. No such wastefulness occurs 

 now. Every leaf, every weed, every bit of lawn 

 clipping, every scrap of vegetable waste, goes into 

 the muck-pile, there to be wet and turned, and 

 then again wet and turned, at least six times in a 

 year. Any March snow is heaped over this muck- 

 pile and, if it is unfrozen, intermixed with it. Last 

 spring I had the satisfaction of seeing the year-old 



